This is curious as companies heading for private equity ownership often wait for the new owners to set about reshaping and galvanising the company. Yet this acquisition follows that of cloud archiver Sonian, which was announced in the same month, November last year, that Barracuda revealed it was going private.

Thoma Bravo must have been aware of both deals and approved them. It’s a good augury for a fast development pace at Barracuda inside Thoma Bravo, which is getting an actively expanding company and not a distressed wreck.

PhishLine’s 15 employees will join Barracuda. The deal cost was not disclosed, but we think it’s less than $10m. ®